American Go E-Journal » Europe

While several different Lego chess sets have been created and marketed in recent years, David Fazekas thinks the Danish plastic brick company is missing a big opportunity. “After Deep Blue defeated Kasparov in 1997 Lego had made several official Lego chess sets,” says Fazekas, promotion executive for the PaGoda Go Association in Hungary. “Now that Deep Mind’s AlphaGo has defeated both Lee Sedol and Ke Jie it’s time for Lego to acknowledge go players with a Lego Go set!” Fazekas has developed a Lego go set prototype and submitted it on the Lego Ideas site, where he needs to gather 10,000 supporters to advance to the next step in the approval process. Thus far he has 754 supporters. “A go Lego set would reach kids in every country,” says Fazekas, “please take a moment to click to show your support for this project.” The word “lego” is derived from the Danish words “leg godt”, meaning “play well”.

A Grand Slam tournament is the top level tournament in the European Go Federation’s Grand Prix, and the only level for which special pre-qualification conditions exist. The first such of 2017 took place in Berlin, starting on the 28th of April, and running for 4 days, the event saw 12 of the strongest European players battle it out for a 10,000 euro prize. The winner of the event was Artem Kachanovskyi (1p) who comes from Ukraine, he beat the Russian player Alexander Dinerchtein (3p) in the final by a margin of 5.5 points. Amusingly, before the event Alexander stated that Artem was the only opponent he felt he would be unable to defeat. Slovakia’s Pavol Lisy (1p) won the play-off for third place, defeating Ilya Shikshin (1p). You can see the full results here.

At the same time, a team tournament was running – the China Cup Berlin. This event was won by deceptively titled “Losers without Borders” (Dominik Boviz (6d), Thomas Debarre (6d), Nikola Mitic (6d)), a team made up of players who were knocked out of the Grand Slam on day 1. They finished ahead of second place “Team Berlin” (Johannes Obenaus(6d), Kim Seongjin(8d), Xu Yin(6d), Zhang Yi(5d)), and third place “The Dudes” (Cristian Pop(7d), Catalin Taranu(5p), Cornel Burzo(6d)). Full reports of both events are available here and here. There will be a second Grand Slam event in Warsaw this year.

The 2017 Irish Confucius Cup took place in Dublin on the weekend of March 4-5. It was the most diverse tournament ever in Ireland, with players coming from 15 different countries. It was also the strongest ever tournament held in Ireland, with 2 European professionals competing, and the top group bar set at 6d. 3 Chinese professionals were also in attendance to give commentaries: Guo Juan 5p (who was also sponsoring the event), Yu Ping 2p, and Chen Rui 5p. Taking first place in the 5-round event was Kim Seong-Jin 7d, who edged out second placed Pavol Lisy 1p by half a point in their round 3 encounter. On 3 wins and taking third place was Mateusz Surma 1p, edging out on tiebreak Csaba Mero 6d. Lower down the field, other players also had outstanding performances, for example Sona Smolarikova 3k picked up 5 wins out of . Players on 4 wins included Julien Renaud 2d, Alec Delogu 2d, Marianna Szychowiak 10k, and Colin Lafferty 13k. The tournament was directed and organised by Rory Wales, with a great deal of assistance and co-operation from the University College Dublin Confucius Institute. The final standings are published here and full details of the tournament and sponsors can be seen here.– Ian Davis

Go is getting some interesting exposure in Vienna, Austria, reports Christian Palmers. At left is a go sculpture installed lastDecember, while at right is a touchscreen go-table, designed and programmed by Daniel Bösze from Vienna. Vienna’s go players — or “gospielers” — play at the Go7 go center.

Early bird rates for this year’s European Go Congress apply until February 15. “This year it does not clash with the US Congress, so you can actually enjoy both!” says Michael Marz, President of the German Go Federation. The EGC will be held in Oberhof, Germany July 22-August 6; check out a brief video here. Marz also reports that the makers of ‘Go — The Surrounding Game’ will show their movie in the EGC Cinema as a European premiere.

Six European professionals fought for the title of a European Professional Go Champion February 8-10th in Saint-Petersburg, Russia. In the end, Ilya Shikshin (Russia, 1p) won the second European Professional Go Championship. Shikshin currently holds both European Champion titles (Open and Professional). In second was Mateusz Surma (Poland, 1p), while Pavol Lisy (Slovakia, 1p) was third. Fourth through sixth places were Alexandre Dinerchtein (Russia, 3p Korea), Ali Jabarin (Israel, 1p) and Artem Kachanovskyi (Ukraine, 1p). Click here for Marika Dubiel’s detailed report, which includes round-by-round reports, photos and game records.

photo: Ilya Shikshin (left) getting a bird’s eye view of his game with Mateusz Surma (right); photo by Mikhail Krylov

Once again this year, many go fans were reunited on the two weekends of November 26-27 and December 3-4, as for the fifteenth time the Paris Ouest Go Club hosted the 34th Paris Meijin tournament. Regular supporters Canon France, the Asahi newspaper, the Nihon-Kiin, Nippon Transeuro and the Association of Expatriot Japanese from the Fukushima Region all supported the tournament.

During the first weekend 59 players, with strength ranging from 20 to 5-kyu, entered into five rounds of competition. Each year it seems that the level of play is higher, perhaps because many players train on the internet. At the end it was 12 year old Vu Linh Tu (5-kyu, right) who was the victor of Section C with 5 wins out of 5, whilst Antonin Masseau won the 10-kyu category. See full results.

During the second weekend there were 64 players whose strength ranged from 4-kyu to 6-dan. Players above 1-dan played in Section A, whilst the rest played in Section B. Amongst the 34 players in Section B was Vu Linh Tu, who had qualified from the previous weekend, and he won this section too, beating Frédéric Berthomier (1-kyu) in the final. See full results.

In Section A, Jiaxin Gao (right), a visiting 6-dan student from China, emerged victorious over all his adversaries. Jiaxin is studying Computer Science at Paris-Sud University and hopes to take part in more tournaments in France. See full results.

Based on the original article in Revue Française de Go by Jérôme Hubert, translated by Ian Davis

The 2017 European Go Congress location has changed. Again. It’s now set for Oberhof, Germany July 22-August 6. Burhaniye, Turkey had originally been chosen back in 2014, but after the supportive local Mayor lost in local elections, the Congress was moved to Capadochia, Turkey. The ongoing conflict in and around Syria eventually led to a recent decision to abandon Turkey as a venue altogether. The Russian Federation, which had hosted the 2016 Congress, offered to step in and the European Go Federation’s executive board chose them as the 2017 hosts over a competing bid from Germany. This decision generated so much controversy that a new vote by the entire EGF was scheduled, with the caveat that both the German and Russian candidates would work together to run the Congress whatever the outcome. The EGF overwhelmingly voted — 47-9 — for Oberhoff, Germany, largely because of a preference for holding the Congress in a different country each year, and the EGF board concurred, finalizing the choice. Oberfhoff is normally known as a winter sports resort, but the nearby countryside ensures it still remains an attractive destination in summer. Click here to see a documentary about the Hotel Panorama, where the 61st European Go Congress will be held.

European Go Congress 2017: The 2017 European Go Congress has been moved from Turkey to Sochi, Russia (Sochi). More details here.

Australian Go Congress: The Australian Go Association, Sydney Go Club and Sydney University Go Club have announced that the 2017 Australian Go Congress — the third such Congress — will be held at Sydney University between September 28th and October 1st 2017. Further details will be released in the coming year.

Canadian Open 2017: After two years in eastern Canada, the Canadian Open is tentatively scheduled for Vancouver on the July 1st to 3rd weekend. Once the venue is confirmed the Canadian Go Association will post more details.

Osaka Go Camp/Japan Go Congress: The Kansai Kiin will host the 5th annual Osaka Go Camp June 25th to July 13th, 2017. The second Japan Go Congress will be held from July 14th to 17th. Registration is now open; click here for details on both.This year more than 80 participated in the camp and 300 attended the congress.

US Go Congress: And while we’re at it, just a reminder that the US Go Congress will be held August 5-8 in San Diego, California. Read the latest news here.

We love to hear about and promote go events around the world; send us details at journal@usgo.org

The third edition of the European Youth Go Team Championships (EYGTC) has begun. It’s once again taking place on KGS. The competing teams represent either individual nations, or a group of nations. For each match, the teams must field five players, one from the Under-20 age range, two from the Under-16 age range, and two from the Under-12 age range. The full details can be found here.

Round 1 took place on Saturday the 3rd of December. The scores were as follows